The Drought

On their left, across the cha

Floodlights blazed from a dozen posts along both fences. Crouching down, his white arms motionless in the grass, Ransom waited for them to go out. He looked up as there was a roar from the open interval beyond the fence.

Crossing the dunes and creeks, in full view of the platoon of soldiers on the dunes above the i

Ransom reached down and took Catherine's arm. "Come on!" he shouted. They scaled the shallow slope up to the fence. A wide section of the wire coil had been removed, and they crawled through, then darted down into a narrow creek. Dozens of other people were moving along with them, some pulling little children, others carrying rifles in their hands.

They were halfway across when a light machine gun began to fire loosely over their heads from an emplacement below the huts, its harsh ripple coming in short bursts of two or three seconds. Partly hidden by the rolling ground, everyone pressed on, climbing through a gap cut in the i

Ransom pulled Catherine down into an empty basin. Everywhere men and women were rushing past them in all directions. Several of the floodlights had gone out, and in the flaring darkness he could see men with carbines retreating to the dunes beyond the huts. To their left the open cha

The scattered shooting resumed, the soldiers firing over the heads of the hundreds of people moving straight toward the sea. Taking Catherine by the arm, Ransom pulled her toward the opening in the i

Following an empty creek, they moved away from the huts. As they crouched down to rest before their final dash to the sea, a man stood up in the brittle grass ten feet above them. With a raised pistol he began to fire across the dunes, shooting straight at the people driven back by the soldiers.

Looking up at him, Ransom recognized the stocky shoulders and pugnacious face.

"Grady!" he called. "Hold off, man!"

As they stumbled from their hiding place, Grady turned and searched the darkness below him. He leveled his pistol at them. He seemed to recognize Ransom, but gestured at him with the weapon.

"Go back!" he shouted hoarsely. "Keep off, we came here first!"

More people appeared, ru

He was kneeling over the little man, his own weapon lost somewhere in the creek, when a platoon of soldiers appeared out of the darkness. Lying down, they began to fire over the heads of the people further down the creek.

A bare-headed lieutenant crawled over to Ransom. He glanced down at the body. "One of ours?" he asked breathlessly.

"Grady," Ransom said. The lieutenant jumped to his feet and ordered his men back up the slope toward the huts. The firing had slackened as the main impetus of the advance spent itself, and many people were retreating back to the fences. Others had got through, and were ru

The lieutenant pushed Catherine behind the edge of the old sea wall. To Ransom he shouted: "Take his gun and keep firing! Over their heads, but if they come at you bring one of them down!"

The soldiers moved off, and Ransom joined Catherine behind the wall. The sea was only fifty yards away, the waves sluicing across the wet sand. Exhausted by the noise, Catherine leaned limply against the wall.

Two or three figures came racing across the flat cha

Ransom threw away the pistol. All along the beach small groups of people were lying in the shallows as the waves splashed across them, watched by the soldiers. Ru